jackandthecitylights.org

I like old stuff. Especially really old stuff like castles and stucco villages that have remained virtually untouched by the outside world for hundreds of years. And the old men in them that sit outside tiny cafes on wooden chairs watching a strange American sweating and panting trying to ride a huge bicycle up steep cobblestone alleys. Unfortunately my interest in these things is relative to how far I have just bike through a mountainous desert avoiding foreign snakes, becoming severely dehydrated, and being utterly destroyed by the treacherously hot sun.

I’m not complaining… I’m just crying like a little baby, the past four days of the ride were hell. Where to start… well I know now that for starters my body was not ready for the heat of August on the Mesa of Spain. I just wasn’t acclimated to the heat I guess. Second I unwisely tried to ration my food to strictly to save money. Eating a small piece of bread with a bit of cheese and greasy pig innards on it for a meal is not conducive to cycling over the biggest series of mountain ranges I have yet encountered. Then worst of all I was just not able to drink enough water and became very dehydrated. I have been dealing with effects of deydration which have been numerous and none of them pleasant.

As soon as I left Madrid the landscape turned into a virtual desert. Fields of dirt, rocks, and dead grass comprised the majority of the landscape between towns. The sun was unrelentingly hot. I found that breathing through my mouth would dry it out completely in only a few minutes.

The first day I left Madrid late in the afternoon, and biked through the heat of mid-day. I had a few problems keeping on course, but found a bike trail some cyclists that spoke enough english to get me back on track. I found a place in natural forest preserve to sleep in. I was awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of some sort of wild animal mournfully howling at the moon. It was quite close to me but didn’t really sound like a wolf, so I decided to ignore it and go back to sleep.

The next day was filled with less navigational confusion. The sun began it’s regiment of wearing me down and drying me out. I came upon the ancient Moorish fortress in the evening, and spent the day wandering about it.

The following day I started into the first set of mountains.

I had been sick from the moment I had awoken in Montoro, and It only got worse throughout the day. Peddling a large heavy bike up endless hills in temperatures approaching 100F is just not as much fun when you have no energy and feel like you are going to vomit. I was only able to make it about 17 miles to a town called Porcuna.

After spending the very last of my strength climbing up to the top of the tall hill the town was situated on I collapsed on the sidewalk, and sat there in the shade half consciousness, half dreaming. While I dozed on the sidewalk the owner of a tiny butcher shop crept out and set a bottle of mineral water next to me. Unable to continue I was forced to spend the next 6 hours in this town resting and forcing myself to drink more water.

Safe from the mid-day sun I set out in the evening and rode on well through the night. At around 1am I stopped off the road and slept beneath an Olive tree. This entire trip I have avoided night riding as much as I could due to the danger of cars and the difficulty of choosing a good sleeping spot. After only 3 days of riding across Spain I changed my outlook on the subject. I found that riding at night and at dawn were the only times I didn’t feel as though I was dying.

As I was informed by Julio the Spanish agricultural engineer I stayed with Spain is the worlds largest producer of olives and olive oil. This was confirmed on account that I have been riding through nothing but Olive orchards for almost two days. Standing at the edges of town in Cordoba they span as far as the eye can see on all sides of the town.

Better hydrated I made it to Granada late the next day. While passing through the outskirts of the city in a town called Armilla I saw an unmistakably gypsy woman. I marveled at the notion that I was seeing a relic of a mysterious ancient race of people. For me up until that moment the gypsy people were something more like a legend I had read about in stories and history documents.

The ride up into the Sierra Nevadas was relatively easy and painless at night and before I knew it I was in Las Alpuharras the region that is responsible for a huge percentage of fruits and vegetables consumed all throughout Europe. Not only is commercial agriculture prevalent here but it is the largest and most infamous site in all of Spain for alternative ways of life, organic farming, and free thinking.

There is nothing I have experienced yet that was anything like my first night in Las Alpuharras. Surrounded by the Sierra Nevada mountains each peak took on a different shade of silver in the erie lunar glow. They looked like hunched back giants all crowded around peering down at me. By nothing but the light of the moon I flew through the congregation of monstrous silhouettes down steep twisty canyon roads at break neck speeds. Corners and switchbacks appeared out of nowhere sending me into tight, adrenaline filled turns being able to see no more than 20 feet in front of me.

I passed through ancient mountain villages set high in the Alpuharras. Some of these civilizations were founded around 400AD by the ancient Syrians. The ancient people chose these lofty heights because they were virtually inaccessible and they remained safe from wars, conquerors, and the troubles of the outside world for many centuries.

Children still played in the street as I rode through at close to midnight. As I passed them they clapped and cheered me on in Spanish. When I passed the man riding a horse through the cobblestone streets of one village I decided that I was in the mountains, and I was having my first “I love my life” moment outside of Madrid. In Laranjon I stopped for the night and slept in a park beneath a black pepper tree. The smell of which reminded me of my grandfather who is so fond of pepper, and as I drifted off to sleep I imagined him there with me enjoying the aroma in the cool crisp mountain air.

The next day I called my first WWOOF host Mathis and arranged a meeting that afternoon in the next town Orgiva. Orgiva was not like any town I had yet seen in Spain. The streets were crowded with people of all different colors and creeds. It is known for it’s alternative culture, and I as I saw they were quite prevalent here. Mathis’ wife showed up right on time to pick me up in front of the town church. We loaded my bike in spite of the protests given by her platinum blonde four year old daughter Florina who, though her sobs said something in German about my bike, and off we headed for La Himena, their farm.

Up and up we wound up a dusty switch back cut into the steep mountain side. There were many times I thought “This must be our turn, surely the mountain can’t go much higher.” before we reached the farm. “Our farm is pretty low, only a quarter of the way up” Mary Ann assured me as we pulled up to a couple of squat whitewashed stuctrures made of odd sizes of stone plastered together with mud. Thick round timbers stripped of their bark comprised the door and window frames. Aside from the whitewashing it looked like something out of the bible. “We’re not there yet, this is the neighbors house”, Mary Ann informed me as we exited the van in the neighbors driveway.

We walked between the buildings down a little pathway ducking beneath a few olive trees. I past a couple of hens who eyed me wearily and made concerned clucks from the safety of their pen which overlooked a small orchard of olives. As I slowly walked along in awe of the natural beauty of my surroundings Little Florina giggled and went bounding past me kicking up little clouds of dust that turned golden sparkled in the beams of sunlight that trickled down through the the trees oevhead. To my left the view of small valley opened up as the old trail of round stones set into the earth narrowed and dropped away taking me past the tops of tall corn in their garden set ten feet below me on a terrace.

A little ways further beneath the shade of a large walnut tree draped in grape vines sat another building made of stone and roughly hewn tree trunks. The first part I saw was the outdoor kitchen having a roof and three walls. Barely under the roof sat a little iron wood stove laden with large pots emitting thick enticing aromas of olive oil and exotic spices. In the kitchen stood younger man who held a large bowl of fruit and had a baby strapped to his back. He greeted me in english with a smile and a thick german accent. The dinning table adjacent to the kitchen sat on a porch that stood over a large grassy terrace with sweeping views of a deep valley. To get to the table one had to duck beneath grapevines laden with fruit that hung from the giant walnut branches.

As I was shown around I saw that La Himena was a somewhat large terraced farm that clung to the mountainside, abounding with fruit and nut trees. Along the way to my cabin I wound down a steep narrow path that intersected with an irrigation duct over 100 centuries old, under a few polmagranite and lime trees, and out onto a quiet terrace overlooking different part of the valley caressed by cool breezes from the Mediterranean Sea in the evening.

In a couple of days I went from the hot arid endless hills of hell to a lush terraced paradise that brings to mind the garden of eden. As if the place wasn’t already amazing enough, it is completely off the grid running on solar and wind generated energy, it’s water is supplied by fresh mountain streams and the ancient irrigation system, and all of the food served at meals is either grown on the farm or on friends farms all of which are 100% organic.

The food here is huge topic on it’s own that I will go into more detail on in my next post. Next week I’ll be writing about life here on La Himena, what kind of work I’m doing, and all the things I’m learning from my hosts.

Hasta luego!

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